


How Can This Be Wrong?

by GhostDetective



Series: Downton Drabbles [42]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Budding Love, Closeted Character, Drabble, Forbidden Love, Internalised Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Guilt, Romance, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 21:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13889412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostDetective/pseuds/GhostDetective
Summary: Edward had been raised a Catholic, his devout mother drumming into him from a young age the concept of sin.





	How Can This Be Wrong?

**Author's Note:**

> I have often wondered whether Edward's suicide was down, in part, to turmoil over his sexuality and attraction to Thomas. Then an idea popped into my head at work that Edward might have struggled for reasons relating to a religious upbringing, so I went and researched the Courtenay family for accuracy and discovered that they were Catholic (Edward's namesake, Edward Courtenay 1st Earl of Devon having been imprisoned in the Tower following his father's alleged part in a Catholic plot against Henry VIII) and the idea snowballed from there. 
> 
> Or, as a friend said to me, "you don't have to be Catholic to have religious guilt, but it helps."

Edward had been raised a Catholic, his devout mother drumming into him from a young age the concept of sin. He had always believed that the things he felt towards the other boys at school were a source of shame. His time at Oxford had taught him much about how men could pleasure each other, but he worried about what this could lead to. Then he had met Thomas and for the first time, he didn’t worry about damnation. The way Thomas made him feel, he was surely in Heaven. Thomas’ lips caressed his neck. How can this be wrong?


End file.
